The New War

So the U.N. okayed going after that ruthless megalomaniac klepto-fascist psychopath, Qaddafi, and that means the U.S. is entering it's third war at once (or second, if you think 50k troops in Iraq is strictly advisers, no longer war). The most interesting discussion of this has been on Andrew Sullivan's blog, with Andrew taking his mea culpa for supporting the Iraq sell-in to war while airing plenty of dissents, as he does so well and daily on his blog:

You should be applauding the way Barack Obama is handling the Libya situation. It is realpolitik in a most self-aware, calculating, interest-driven, human rights driven, cold-blooded form. It's something you claim to want in our foreign policy.

The US is not leading this, and probably won't, ever. That is why Barack Obama is not making a public drive for support. In fact, we were moved toward a no-fly zone by Arab countries largely, and Europe, decisively. When was the last time that happened? Ask yourself why Obama is acting this way.

Evidently both Clintons wanted this action, likening it more to that Administration's success in Bosnia, particularly getting NATO to take their part, than invading with mainly American troops. But Obama may have done the Clinton's one better:

But notice that unlike Clinton in the case of Bosnia, and unlike Bush in the case of Iraq II, Obama has managed to get something his predecessors could not: UN support for what could be a major multilateral intervention led by states other than the U.S. Doesn't this remind you in some ways of how he handled healthcare, and succeeded where his predecessors had failed, to do something of real significance through patience, reserve, and a commitment to process?

And then there is, interestingly enough, an important ally in Egypt:

Egypt has an open border with the rebel-controlled east of Libya, and just one brigade of the Egyptian army would be enough to stop Gaddafi’s ground forces in their tracks. The Egyptian air force could easily shoot down any of Gaddafi’s aircraft that dared to take off, especially if it had early warning from European or American AWACS aircraft. The Egyptian army would probably not need to go all the way to Tripoli, although it could easily do so if necessary. Just the fact of Egyptian military intervention would probably convince most of the Libyan troops still supporting Gaddafi that it is time to change sides.

This is the first war President Obama has chosen that wasn't a remnant of previous Presidents. To me it's where we'll see his true Commander-in-Chief character, as even Afghanistan, for all the talk of him now owning it, was essentially a mulligan from the Bush Administration's failure to capitalize on their initial success, due to their pathological and Oedipal focus on Iraq.

I don't know if Sullivan's fighting the last war (a common error) and I don't want the U.S. in another long slog either, but I really want to see Qaddafi at The Hague, if not hung by rope or meathook first. Bad is bad, and he's essentially paying a mercenary army to do his dirty work -- yours and my gasoline credit card purchases paying for the leveling of villages controlled by the rebels. So I like the idea of making Libya's neighbors do the policing.

With weapons they bought from us.

Hee-yah!

Leaky Ships

I'm concerned that the WikiLeaks diplomacy bomb released today will lead to some sort of crackdown on Internet freedom and provide misdirection in support of anti-Net Neutrality legislation. I'm worried that the sharing of information between government agencies that began after 9/11, which was in part allowed to happen by a lack of inter-agency information exchange, will be squelched.

On the other hand, I'm loving this:

According to Le Monde (in translation), a cable relayed to Washington a conversation between the emir of Qatar and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) last February: "Based on over 30 years of experience with the Iranians, the emir concluded the meeting by saying that we shouldn't believe but one word in a hundred that the Iranians say." The prime minister of Qatar told Kerry later that trip that Ahmadinejad told him: "we beat the Americans in Iraq, the final battle will be in Iran."

The president of the Upper House of the Jordanian Parliament, Zeid Rifai, was said in a cable (translated) to have told the U.S. that "the dialogue with Iran will go 'nowhere', adding: 'bomb Iran or live with a nuclear Iran: the sanctions, the carrots, the incentives, have no importance.'"

The Omanis were similarly concerned, according to cables relayed by the New York Times, as an Omani military official told officials that he could not decide which was worse: "a strike against Iran's nuclear capability and the resulting turmoil it would cause in the Gulf, or inaction and having to live with a nuclear-capable Iran."

The United Arab Emirates' deputy defense chief, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi, called Iranian Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "Hitler" to U.S. officials, also "stressed 'that he wasn't suggesting that the first option was 'bombing' Iran,' but also warned, 'They have to be dealt with before they do something tragic.'"

The Saudis, the Bahrainis and even Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak were all similarly inclined, as has been widely reported -- El Pais reported that Mubarak's hatred for Iran was called "visceral" and the New York Times reported the existence of cables referring to the Saudi king's "frequent exhortations" to engage in military action against Iran. The Bahrainis, too, are said to be keen to see Iran's nuclear program halted, and King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa is said to have blamed problems in Iraq and Afghanistan on the Iranian government -- and both Kuwaiti and Yemeni officials reportedly told U.S. diplomats similar things about Iranian involvement in fomenting dissent in their own countries.

For far too long the Arab countries in the Middle East have acted like it's Israel against Iran and "Not I! Not I!" What these leaks prove is that there is certainly reason for common ground between Israel and it's neighbors, that they are not afraid of Israel but, rather, Iran, and that their hypocrisy knows no bounds on this issue.

I'm also not against the reported (by Forbes) revelations to come from WikiLeaks regarding the evil at the high end of the contemporary banking industry:

“You could call it the ecosystem of corruption,” he says, refusing to characterize the coming release in more detail. “But it’s also all the regular decision making that turns a blind eye to and supports unethical practices: the oversight that’s not done, the priorities of executives, how they think they’re fulfilling their own self-interest.”

Oh, and by the way, nobody knows what they hell is really going on in North Korea.

Fingers Crossed

First day, Hamas predictably tries to derail, but they haven't stopped the talks yet.

Gobama?

Blunder

As an American Jew who visited Israel in my youth and has fond memories of when it wasn't run by the rightwing Likud Party and its coalition of further-righters, I'm appalled and saddened by the loss of life as well as the worldwide diplomatic disaster that has resulted from the bungled flotilla raid. While is appears clear that the flotilla delivering aid to Gaza in defiance of the Israeli blockade was meant as a political trap and the bloody Israeli response was surely more than they'd ever dreamed possible to advance their cause, per George Friedman:

The bid to shape global perceptions by portraying the Palestinians as victims of Israel was the first prong of a longtime two-part campaign. The second part of this campaign involved armed resistance against the Israelis. The way this resistance was carried out, from airplane hijackings to stone-throwing children to suicide bombers, interfered with the first part of the campaign, however. The Israelis could point to suicide bombings or the use of children against soldiers as symbols of Palestinian inhumanity. This in turn was used to justify conditions in Gaza. While the Palestinians had made significant inroads in placing Israel on the defensive in global public opinion, they thus consistently gave the Israelis the opportunity to turn the tables. And this is where the flotilla comes in.

The Turkish flotilla aimed to replicate the Exodus story or, more precisely, to define the global image of Israel in the same way the Zionists defined the image that they wanted to project. As with the Zionist portrayal of the situation in 1947, the Gaza situation is far more complicated than as portrayed by the Palestinians. The moral question is also far more ambiguous. But as in 1947, when the Zionist portrayal was not intended to be a scholarly analysis of the situation but a political weapon designed to define perceptions, the Turkish flotilla was not designed to carry out a moral inquest.

Instead, the flotilla was designed to achieve two ends. The first is to divide Israel and Western governments by shifting public opinion against Israel. The second is to create a political crisis inside Israel between those who feel that Israel’s increasing isolation over the Gaza issue is dangerous versus those who think any weakening of resolve is dangerous.

What I'd like to point out is that there is significant opposition to the current Gaza blockage within Israel, and protest against the violence of the past day. There's this letter signed by a group of progressive rabbis calling for an end to the siege of Gaza. There was a leftwing protest in Tel Aviv today, that -- unfortunately, again -- led to a teargas canister causing the loss of an eye from an American Jew protesting the Israeli actions. There's the progressive U.S. Jewish PAC, J Street, calling on President Obama and the U.S. to provide stronger leadership to end the overall conflict now. And there's this opinion piece in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, linking the failure of the flotilla operation to that of "Operation Cast Lead," the three-week 2006 attack on Gaza which, no matter how well intentioned in response to Hamas bombs being lobbed in Israel, left over 1000 Palestinians (and 13 Israelis) dead, many of the Gaza casualties being civilians, with many homes destroyed by Israeli forces. Per Gideon Levy in Haaretz:

Again Israel will pay a heavy diplomatic price, once which had not been considered ahead of time. Again, the Israeli propaganda machine has managed to convince only brainwashed Israelis, and once more no one asked the question: What was it for? Why were our soldiers thrown into this trap of pipes and ball bearings? What did we get out of it?

If Cast Lead was a turning point in the attitude of the world toward us, this operation is the second horror film of the apparently ongoing series. Israel proved yesterday that it learned nothing from the first movie.

Yesterday's fiasco could and should have been prevented. This flotilla should have been allowed to pass and the blockade should be brought to an end.

This should have happened a long time ago. In four years Hamas has not weakened and Gilad Shalit was not released. There was not even a sign of a gain.

And what have we instead? A country that is quickly becoming completely isolated. This is a place that turns away intellectuals, shoots peace activists, cuts off Gaza and now finds itself in an international blockade. Once more yesterday it seemed, and not for the first time, that Israel is increasingly breaking away from the mother ship, and losing touch with the world - which does not accept its actions and does not understand its motives.

If the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again without any improvement in result, isn't it time for Israel to try another tack? I remain both hopeful and skeptical that there will be peace; hopeful due to my belief that most people just want to work hard and make a better life for themselves and their families, skeptical because of the lack of a contiguous Palestinian state boundary, lack of faith in the current Israeli government and rightward drift due to newer more fundamentalist Israelis, and trepidation that the brainwashing of Palestinian children, indeed Arab children throughout the Middle East, that Jews and Zionism are intrinsically evil -- teachings that will not go away quickly, no matter what benevolence Israel bestows.

That said, this is the kind of symbolic/real-life event that, like the ongoing ocean-killing in the Gulf of Mexico, that has the potential to turn public opinion in a positive way and lead to real statesmanship. Nothing one can bet on but, in the right hands, a teachable moment.

I'll pray for it.

The Hugest Bummer

Thanks to enough blame to go around and go way back and, what's not hard to predict will be proven in court before this all ends, criminal negligence we're in the worst man-made ecological crisis since Chernobyl. The making of portions of the earth uninhabitable, more like our long ago poisoned and dried up neighbors in this solar system. More like entropy.

Nature organizes. Man attempts to impose will on nature, nature all too often disorganizes. It's ultimately all about our appetites for creature comforts and layers of security in an often hostile world.

I'm willing to give President Obama a chance to prove he's got a handle on this nightmare, or putting one into place. He's earned my trust thus far making strategic decision of value when being handed huge fountains of dute. He spoke today and is taking the type of responsibility Bush and his cronies couldn't muster. The responsibility we all have to start taking as well if we want to have a planetary future:



And he's got to be busy with this huge pile of dute suddenly flowing from succession-wracked North Korea, while relaunching out strategy for managing threats with Secretary of State Clinton.

Let's hope daddy can plug the hole:

World Class President

He gets Ukraine to divest itself of highly enriched uranium, making the world a little safer from terrorists who might get hold of it.

His new START treaty is widely approved by the U.S. public -- 70%, to be exact.

He gets China to agree to push sanctions on Iran. He pisses off the Iranian leadership with his new policy.

Per Russian Premier Medvedev, who has his own worries about terrorists getting powerful bombs, he's great to work with:

MEDVEDEV: He's very comfortable partner, it's very interesting to be with him. The most important thing that distinguishes him from many other people – I won't name anyone by name – he's a thinker, he thinks when he speaks. Which is already pretty good.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You had somebody in your mind, I think. (LAUGHS)

MEDVEDEV: Obviously I do have someone on my mind. I don't want to offend anyone. He's eager to listen to his partner, which is a pretty good quality for a politician. Because any politician is to a certain degree a mentor. They preach something. And the ability to listen to their partner is very important for the politician. And he is pretty deeply emerged in the subject, so he has a good knowledge of what he's talking about. There was no instance in our meetings with Mr. Obama where he wasn't well prepared for the questions. This is very good. And after all, he's simply a very pleasant man with whom it's a pleasure to deal with.

President Barack Obama: Making America healthier and the world safer.

Do you really think there's going to be somebody more qualified and suited to the job than him in two years?

As a Zionist

As a Jewish American who supports the State of Israel, I've always been against Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu and his Likud Party, especially now that it is in coalition with the Far Far Right Shas Party. It is repeatedly annoying that the U.S. appears powerless to stop Israeli settlement expansion into lands seized during wars, no matter our rhetoric and attempts to portray America as an honest broker between Israelis and Palestinians.

But maybe something is about to change.

Bibi stepped in it when his government humiliated Vice President on a peacemaking trip last week to Israel, just as some sort of "proximity negotiations" were established. Netanyahu claims he didn't know that the Shas minister(s) had approved even more new settlements in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hope will be their future capital, but whether he did or not, he actually pissed off Biden, one of Israel's staunchest supporters for decades.

Biden responded by showing up ninety minutes late for a state dinner and twice upbraiding the Israeli government in public, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took it a step further by chewing out Bibi in a 45 minute phone call. Nice.

The upshot seems to be that this type of behavior on the part of Israel actually endangers American troops -- American lives -- overseas. This isn't just a haphazard opinion, but that of esteemed Gen. David Petraeus, per his briefing to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No joke.

Per Jeffrey Goldberg, here's President Obama's strategy for Israel in the Administration's response to this affront:

The goal is force a rupture in the governing coalition that will make it necessary for Netanyahu to take into his government Livni's centrist Kadima Party (he has already tried to do this, but too much on his terms) and form a broad, 68-seat majority in Knesset that does not have to rely on gangsters, messianists and medievalists for votes.

Here here. There is opportunity in this fight. Yes, various Palestinian factions including Hamas have been bad actors in the past. Yes, the Palestinians are often their own worst enemies. But how long can the status quo go on? Can the Far Right in Israel really colonize their way out of this historical problem?

Of course, the flip side is true: can a contiguous Palestinian state be created and eventually live side-by-side in peace with Israel?

Winning Diplomatic Path?

Here?

Here?

Glug Glug

As Homer Simpson once said:

“Here's to alcohol: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.”

And the media -- like many of us -- can't get enough of it:



If only Muslim's drank, Obama could solve all the problems in the Middle East with a single Happy Hour!

The Brave One

I can't think of a more courageous politician in my lifetime than President Barack Obama. If the assassination of a doctor by a rightwing extremist goaded on by Bill O'Reilly and Operation Rescue wasn't warning enough, and this guy in Utah arrested for being on a mission to do ultimate harm to our President, there's the speech in Cairo today that speaks dangerous truths we've never heard before from an American President, truths that are common knowledge but that neocons would rather never be admitted to, Kabuki-style, truths that are not well-received by either al Qaida or the Israeli settler movement.

The whole hour:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

He called for all kinds of responsibility -- for Palestinians to accept Israel, for Israel to stop with the West Bank settlements, for corrupt regional governments to reform, for women to get equal education on the region, for understanding by America of the Muslim world and an end to stereotyping of American by Islamic peoples. Enough truth to offend a lot of partisans.

A sampling of those against it:

Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, John Bolton, Hugh Hewitt, the Republican Jewish Coalition, and John Boehner all disliked the President's speech.

Okay, with enemies like that, we know he's doing something right.

As Al Giordano points out, Obama is the Anti-Politician:

Politicians, in general, are a reactive caste. They look at things as they are, and opportunistically seek out and study the cracks and weaknesses in society in order to put themselves at its helm. Most believe (and those that don’t believe, pretend) they are doing this in service of a higher ideal: right or left, liberal or conservative, progressive or religious, whatever, but because the great majority of them are essentially reacting to the same set of seemingly inexorable current events, the sum of their actions is that of constructing individual fiefdoms that look much the same no matter what ideology or flag flies over them.

And then there are the rare historical figures that appear now and then in human events to disregard those base reactive impulses with enough discipline to first develop their own idea of how things ought to be. And only after developing a detailed yet clear vision for society do they then enter the political fray. Probably the best example in the last century of such an anti-politician was Mohandas K. Gandhi, who returned home to India at the age of 46, after winning civil rights for immigrants in South Africa. He found a homeland thirsting for independence from the British Empire and its impositions. A media hero and cause celébre upon his return to Indian shores, the pro-independence advocates and parties sought Gandhi out to lead a revolution against the Crown.

Gandhi – conscious that after being away for 27 years in London and South Africa he did not know his native country well enough to lead it – instead imposed upon himself a moratorium against speaking to the press, and embarked upon a listening tour through the forgotten and impoverished regions of India in order to first understand what the real yearnings and realities of its people were. Only after he felt he had a comprehensive enough vision for what kind of better society was possible there did he enter the fray that, as history knows, won independence for the region, while showing the world a new way to fight for freedom.

Listening to the President’s remarks in Cairo this morning – billed as a speech to all the Muslims in the world – it is clear that in Barack Obama our moment in history has one such transcendent leader.

Here's ten key points from this, the biggest speech of his already remarkable career. A President who can finally talk to Palestinians. Speaking to the U.S. from Cairo as well. The first President to acknowledge that America, in 1953, sabotaged democracy in Iran when fairly elected Prime Minister Mossadegh had the temerity to nationalize the oil industry), starting the chain of blowback that led to radical Islamic revolution, U.S. hostages, today's nuclear threat.

Here's how Netanyahu watched the speech, Kabuki reactions. Here's the overwhelmingly favorable reaction from the world press, including the mainstream Islamic press.

Michael Scherer has the clearest sense of Obama's overriding international vision, this "Obama Doctrine", and how it played out with the powerful close of the speech:

This vision, as I have touched on before, does not elevate the United States as the protector of transcendent values, but rather lowers America into the great pool of nations and peoples, where everyone operates on the same level with a God-given set of responsibilities to understand each other and work together for collective improvement. The political leader who has spent a lifetime moving between cultures envisions a world where tribal differences are trumped by common humanity and practical necessity. In some ways, it is as idealistic a vision as the ones proposed by Bush senior and junior. Time will tell if it is more successful.

It is notable that Obama ended his speech with three quotes, one from the Koran, one from the Talmud, one from the New Testament, each describing God's instructions for all people to work together and get along. Of the three, the quote from the Koran is the most eloquent. “O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.” It is, in a poetic verse, an apt encapsulation of Obama's radical idea--that despite our differences we are meant to find common purpose.

So can it be done? Well, Obama is saying to the world, look at me: the son of a Kenyan and a Kansan, the Christian man with a Muslim family, the black Hawaiian teenage stoner who rose through the traditionally white Northeastern Ivy League to lead the nation's most powerful country. I've already done it. You can too.

Yes we, the world, can.

But will we?

The Big One

I don't think it's going too far to say that the biggest reason Obama was elected was to repair our situation with the Muslim nations of the world, both diplomatically and militarily.

If there was no other reason to vote for this brilliant yet reasonable man starting back in the primaries when the economy wasn't the issue, it was because as someone with half his ancestry in that world and a few years logged living in an Islamic country as a child, he was going to present a different face to the world than ever in American history. Ever since the oil barons of this world fully exercised their power for the first time with gas shortages in the mid-1970's, simultaneously as Israeli-Palestinian violence reached unheard of levels, as the U.S. installed Shah fled revolutionary Iran and the religious militants took U.S. hostages, we've had to grapple with the region disproportionately more than in our nation's past. And none of it has been successful thus far.

Now you fix those problems, multi-culti college man.

As I've often written, Obama's greatest asset is his strategic capacities. If rescuing the U.S. banking and credit system wasn't difficult enough, there's all the moving parts in the Middle East. So I'm looking forward to his speech tomorrow. Of all his big speeches thus far, this is the biggest. This one is about forging a new course in World History.

Word is the speech is very candid. Which is his strategy for his whole Administration:

“We have a joke around the White House,” the president said. “We’re just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working — and nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East.”

I'll be concerned if it stops working.

So far from a Fox News branded apology tour, Obama is seeking to do the job we hired him to do:

CAIRO — President Obama arrived in Egypt on Thursday aiming to repair America’s relationship with the Muslim world through a speech at Cairo University, a carefully planned address that aides said would challenge Muslim perceptions about the United States.

He's had a good first news cycle over in that part of the world. If he's setting up partnerships within the region linked out to the Western world, then this will be the Islamic World equivalent of Nixon goes to China. The history train is taking a turn through what was once called The Orient.

Watch this space.

Third Rail, Middle East

I know that not all of my fellow Jews are going to agree, but I'm impressed so far with the Obama Administration line on halting Israeli settlements in the West Bank. I've been against them ever since 1970's Prime Minister Menachem Begin started them up.

I understand that my Jewish homeland is small and needs all the land it can get to help grow its population by immigration, but I also feel that those settlers are the most intractable Israelis, the ones most likely to stand in the way of a peace settlement and, yes, I blame that movement for producing the assassin who killed courageous Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, snuffing out hopes for peace in 1995. And that this assassin is considered a hero by so many of these settlers is...unsettling.

It's not going to be easy. Netanyahu thinks he can manipulate the process and the U.S. to keep peace from happening, and possibly attack Iran in the process. This is dangerous stuff, dangerous to Israel itself, per Roger Cohen in The New York Times:

Netanyahu talks a lot about the “existential threat” from Iran. The United States faces a prosaic daily threat: Many more young American men and women will die in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next several years if no Iranian breakthrough is achieved.

Obama must remind Israel of that. He should also tell Bibi that the real existential threat to Israel is not Amalek but hubris: An attack on Iran that would put the Jewish state at war with Persians as well as Arabs, undermine its core U.S. alliance, and set Tehran on a full-throttle course to a nuclear bomb with the support of some 1.2 billion Muslims.

As everyone knows, the problem is complex, and there are a huge number of factors for Obama, Israel, whatever passes for the Palestinian leadership and the Arab powers in the region to consider. But if Israel can make a three decade-long peace with its once fiercest enemy, Egypt, can't more pieces of the problem be solved?

Another Smug Loser

I used to get especially pissed off by El Presidente George W. Bush's smug expressions at the rare press conference or any place where asked a question by someone other than a handpicked stooge, and often even then.

But Bush is off the scene and seems a lot less assholish than Shadow President Cheney. And the guy who's still got a title and a speaking spot today in front of the world is the smug little Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Today, he was rewarded for his Anti-Semitic blatherings by a walkout:



My hope is that those religious clerics reported to actually be the real power in Iran will see this little man as a detriment to their interests on the world stage. After all, if so much of the Western world walks out on your representative, you're not really going to be heard.

However, hope does not run very deep for Iran right now. Whether intended as a bargaining chip or to send a chilling message, the U.S. journalists, Roxana Sabieri. arrested in Iran for supposed spying was just sentenced to eight years in a nightmarish prison, one where torture routinely is inflicted upon the prisoners. Of course, it would be nice if the U.S.A. wasn't guilty of some variety of torture ourselves, so we'd have the clearest of moral highgrounds, but there's still no excuse for this flagrant miscarriage of "justice."

I don't believe that going in and bombing this week will do anything to help change Iran for the better or give us any true victory over this repressive regime. I do believe that President Obama is correct to embark upon a strategic course of attempted engagement. And I fully expect that should all of our good attempts fail to change some key elements of the Iranian situation today, that he will take forceful action, this time with the world on our side.

To be for such an approach is not to be pro-Iranian government. And it certainly isn't to be pro-Ahmadinejad.

His destiny will come.

Right Again and Again

So if you want any more evidence that Sen. Barack Obama has better judgment than El Presidente Bush and Sen. John McCain put together, there's two huge pieces of brand new evidence: Both Republicans have flip-flopped and are now favoring two of the Democrat's long-averred policies.

McCain has flipped his flop to support Obama's longtime position on troop levels to finish the job in Afghanistan, even if the McCain-coddling mainstream media has yet to notice:



It turns out the Pentagon agrees as well. And all the McCain campaign can do is toss out a desperate, laughable lie that Obama is somehow the real "= Bush", i.e. not their guy. Huh?

Meanwhile, while Obama has been called an appeaser for advocating direct talks with Iran by every McCain, Lieberman, Bush and Cheney around, now it seems that El Presidente is switching to his side:

The United States will announce in the next month that it plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years, a British newspaper said on Thursday...

...The United States will announce in the next month that it plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years, a British newspaper said on Thursday.

It remains to be seen whether George and John end up pulling the lever for Barack come November.

Secret Mission?

The rock & roll Primary has taken over the front page of every newspaper and the top of all cable news shows this past week, while the Cheney/Bush Administration has either stumbled into or attempted to fabricate a "provocation" from Iran in the very waters we are jamming with battleships right next to their country.

It turns out the sparking radio threat was likely not made by Iranian gunships. It appears no confrontation actually happened.

At the same time, El Presidente Bush is over in Israel, engaged in the kind of "shoot the moon" Mideast peace strategy his team actually belittled his predecessor, President Bill Clinton, for attempting in his last year of office. Credit where credit is due, El Presidente is actually somewhat bold in what he's saying he wants to see happen, I believe the first U.S. President to use the term "occupation" for Israel's control of the West Bank.

On the other hand, I don't believe for a second that Cheney et al don't want to bomb the hell out of Iran and leave the next President dug in with whatever they've wrought.

So with that in mind, is there maybe the possibility that Bush is in Israel not only for his peace plan, but to coordinate at the highest levels for an attack on Iran to follow...maybe under cover of the February 5th "Super Tuesday" Primary hoopla?

It'll shame me to say it if I have to, but you'll have read it here first.

Very Bad News

Nothing to joke about in Pakistan with the horrific assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The country is now officially on the brink of massive upheaval or violent repression. If you want to the get best overall view that I've read so far, Prof. Juan Cole once again makes it understandable, especially the background for what's just come home to roost:

Pakistan is important to US security. It is a nuclear power. Its military fostered, then partially turned on the Taliban and al-Qaeda, which have bases in the lawless tribal areas of the northern part of the country. And Pakistan is key to the future of its neighbor, Afghanistan. Pakistan is also a key transit route for any energy pipelines built between Iran or Central Asia and India, and so central to the energy security of the United States.

The military government of Pervez Musharraf was shaken by two big crises in 2007, one urban and one rural. The urban crisis was his interference in the rule of law and his dismissal of the supreme court chief justice...Last June 50,000 protesters came out to defend the supreme court, even though the military had banned rallies.

The rural crisis was the attempt of a Neo-Deobandi cult made up of Pushtuns and Baluch from the north to establish themselves in the heart of the capital, Islamabad, at the Red Mosque seminary. They then attempted to impose rural, puritan values on the cosmopolitan city dwellers. When they kidnapped Chinese acupuncturists, accusing them of prostitution, they went too far....Musharraf ham-fistedly had the military mount a frontal assault on the Red Mosque and its seminary, leaving many dead and his legitimacy in shreds.

U.S.-Pakistan diplomacy now in shambles?

Will President Dick make us invade?

Prescience

From the June 16, 2001 White House Joint Press Conference transcript:

I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country. And I appreciated so very much the frank dialogue.

There was no kind of diplomatic chit-chat, trying to throw each other off balance. There was a straightforward dialogue. And that's the beginning of a very constructive relationship. I wouldn't have invited him to my ranch if I didn't trust him. (Laughter.)

That was the Joint Press Conference by President Bush and Russian Federation President Putin.

There was no kind of diplomatic chit-chat. No trying to throw each other off- balance. Because that would have been the tactic, you see. Putin's only tactic.

The "Nickname Prezdent" proves once again that he is our nation's greatest judge of character:

On a second day of rallies against President Vladimir V. Putin, riot police officers aggressively broke up a protest in St. Petersburg on Sunday, detaining numerous marchers, including two prominent politicians.

The unrest came a day after a similar event in Moscow ended with the arrest of Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion and opposition leader, whose coalition, Other Russia, has declared that Mr. Putin is turning Russia into a dictatorship. A judge sentenced Mr. Kasparov to five days in jail.

Similar demonstrations across Russia this weekend, a week before parliamentary elections, were either banned by regional authorities or squelched by the police.

Putin, Musharraf, it's all just friendly fascism. This is what they do.

Kasparov was recently on the U.S. TV circuit hawking his new book and giving a frank reality check on the growth of Putin's repressive, power aggrandizing moves.

Fortunately, the Cheney/Bush White House is responding:

"We are troubled that Garry Kasparov and other leaders of the opposition have been arrested and detained," said White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Once more time:

Heckuva job, Bushie.